127 Measurement Standardization (1/2)

After half a month, Wang Lu and Wen Bao (with thick faces) continued to live in the Ru Family Inn at ease, engaging in writing their report.

After many of her protests had gone invalid, the Lady Boss was too lazy to care anymore. Everyday, she just boiled them some radish cabbage to feed these two useless literati to fulfill her obligation as a teammate.

During this half a month, the other Spirit Sword Sect disciples gradually trickled up the mountain from all over the Blue River Region. And because the Spirit Creek Town was a transit point where people have to go through to get to the mountain, these disciples unavoidably bumped into each other.

Compared to one year ago, these returning disciples were like being reborn. Most people have followed the instruction manual issued by the Elders, gained rare experience, and subsequently, quickly matured. And after this year’s rapid growth, the self-confidence of these disciples was also multiplied; when they greeted each other, it was hard for them not to show their edge, and thus produce a little bit of friction. Of course, in the foot of the Spirit Sword Mountain, they wouldn’t resort to fighting. However, occasional quarrel when one of them would turn red face after being humiliated was inevitable. After all, almost everyone has their own rare adventure in the past year, thus the previous “pecking order” when they were still on the mountain has already long been shuffled. Therefore, it was a good time to determine the order again, to see who would submit to whom.

Spirit Sword Sect was not a hierarchical kind of place, however, each disciple would have a vague sense of where their position was, who was stronger than them, or who was weaker, and the corresponding attitude on how they should treat them… Almost all of them knew where their position was. Although the Spirit Sword Sect didn’t advocate this, it was probably a concept that was already carved in Nine Region’s people’s bones and could not be reversed.

In the past half a month, Wang Lu had been watching the countless quarrels of these little brats with great interest.

Of course, this quarrel was nothing more than boasting and putting each other down. Some said they defeated a top level Foundation Establishment demon from a devil sect, and some said they killed a monster with an inner core… Some also said they were taken fancy by a Xudan Stage female cultivator and had a romance with her.

This story competition was really marvelous. Wang Lu himself just silently listened to them from inside the inn. On the other hand, Wen Bao, who was determined to write a unique and shocking-the-world report, tweaked his ears and scratched his cheek in delight, repeatedly sighing again and again as he listened to those stories, thinking that, sure enough, wisdom was within the people. While he let himself feel worried about how to write that ruthless mad tyrant story, unexpectedly, as he sipped tea in the Inn hall, he could hear those...

Of course, besides those quarrels, they also heard many stories about the other disciples’ gain. After one year of experience, these disciples have also exchanged each other many information. For example, there were a Senior Brother and a Senior Sister who had a surprising adventure somewhere, making one feel ashamed of one’s inferiority. There was also a Junior Brother who had nearly fell into a trap in the remains of an ancient tomb. Luckily, heaven helped the worthy, so he didn’t fell and die prematurely...

The rest of their talk was filled with story comparison. Most of these disciples were bursting with self-confidence, thus they always looked unconvinced with other people’s stories. However, as they kept hearing those stories, through the constant comparison between each others’ stories, in time, they formed a consensus. Which was, in the past year, there were few amongst them whose gain were indeed far better than the others. In short, these were the exceptionals. Although the rest of them felt confident when compared against each other, they were sure that they have no chance of winning against these exceptionals.

For example, a certain Successor Disciple who were quietly working on his reports in the inn. Although he seemed friendly and looked like there was nothing special about him, moreover, he spent most of the time scribbling rapidly over the desk, however, somehow, as soon as one got a little closer to him, they would immediately feel that their breath has become stagnant, making it hard for them to gasp their breath, causing them to unconsciously lower their head.

Fortunately, these disciples have also gained a lot of insights in the past year. After discussing it among themselves, they drew a conclusion: this was the so-called leader temperament. In the previous year, many of them have seen high ranking people with similar makings such as Emperors, leaders of big sects and so on. Therefore, people began to make a guess on what kind of organization that Wang Lu did manage in the past year. However, no one could guess that before he returned to the mountain, Wang Lu already has millions of followers, and nearly the entire grassroots level in the Great Ming Country have fallen into his control.

Having a person with this kind of making, how could their cultivation level be compared to that? Let alone Wang Lu has always been known as the experiential learning expert. Whether his feat at that year in the Immortal Gathering, or later on when he broke the record in the Small Clear Sky Peak, all of these past achievements made people believe that in this past year’s experiential learning, his harvest was absolutely enormous and likely to break the limit of people’s imagination… Even though there was a controversy when he entered the mountain, in any case, he was now a genuine Successor Disciple; they, as the inner and outer court disciples, should not look for trouble on him.

However, even Wang Lu wasn’t recognized as the first in the list of exceptionals by the other disciples.

“The first place should belong to Successor Disciple Liu Li.”

In the past half a month, this was the sentence that Wang Lu heard the most.

As for why the girl nicknamed little Liu Li [1] has such an impressive achievement...

“Why? Because she single-handedly slew the twelve Blood Cloud Demons at the Blood Cloud Gorge. Those twelve demonic monsters were all peak Foundation Establishment, and some of them were even Xudan Stage characters. Yet, they were beaten by a young girl who nearly reached the Foundation Establishment Stage until they wail like ghosts and howl like wolves; they didn’t even have the strength to fight back… It is said that even the Shengjing Sect was surprised by this battle.”

“Yes, that’s right. A few years ago, there was also a beautiful low-level Foundation Establishment female cultivator name Qiong Hua from the Shengjing Sect who was able to defeat her enemy, a Xudan Stage cultivator. Then, immensely proud of herself, she announced that result to the world, as if she was the leading figure among the young generation. But now, it seems like it was nothing.”

“Alas, how exactly is a Foundation Establishment able to defeat a Xudan…”

While these disciples were talking, Wang Lu quietly listened to their conversation from the side with amusement.

He thought, “A mere Xudan, is there something to boast about that? My Wisdom Sect can easily send out several Xudan Stage Elders. When I slapped them because I found their work is not to my liking, who among them dared to defect to the other sect? They just sighed with emotion as they felt that they’ve received grace from their superior and then still continued to follow my order.”

Nine Regions was too vast that even in the relatively remote Blue River Region, there were countless Qi Cultivating Stage and Foundation Establishment cultivators. The cultivators in this piece of land were too numerous, some of them have Heavenly Spirit Root, some Earthly Spirit Root, with various level of intelligence, perception, core cultivation method, and treasures… Even if two cultivators were in the same cultivation stage, their strengths could be ten times or hundred times different, there was simply no reference value.

For the same Xudan Stage, a Spirit Sword Sect’s Xudan Stage disciple, even the most good-for-nothing one, could easily flatten more than ten Ye Chuchen! If nothing else, take a certain official Mu Xiao [2] for example. He was a standard Xudan Stage cultivator; his strength was neither strong nor weak, yet it was impossible for that Sheng Jing Sect’s Foundation Establishment female cultivator to contend against him.

Cultivation stage could not be used to accurately represent the strength, however, apart from this, there was no other common standard that could succinctly determine the difference in the strength between cultivators. This problem existed widely in all of the discussions of the Spirit Sword Sect disciples; their quarrel over this often turned into chaos, such as...

“Last month, I defeated a high-level Foundation Establishment devil cultivator, what qualifications do you have to be so rampant in front of me?”

“What’s so great about high-level Foundation Establishment? Junior Zhao Youxin and I collaborated to defeat four high-level Foundation Establishment cultivators, aren’t we two times better than you?”

“The quality of your high-level Foundation Establishment is trash, yet you have the nerve to show it off? The one that I defeated is a famous devil cultivator!”

“My opponents are not weak. Even if their cultivation is slightly less, their magical tools are genuine goods at fair prices!”

“My devil cultivator opponent is not weak too…”

“Mine is two against four!”

“Nonsense, as long as we properly use our Spirit Sword Sect’s Heaven and Earth Sword Array, not only our strength would be more than doubled, each of those crooked paths and sinister heart cultivators’ strength would be less than one in ten, therefore, your so called two against four is actually only two against two times a fifth!”

“Less than one in ten your ass!”

“Your ass!”